Brie Larson Drama ‘Room’ Wins Toronto Audience Award

“Room” has been chosen by the audience as the best film at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, winning the festival’s Grolsch People’s Choice Award at a ceremony in Toronto on Sunday.

The Lenny Abrahamson film stars Brie Larson as a woman who is abducted and kept imprisoned in a garden shed for years, and tries to protect and raise the five-year-old son (Jacob Tremblay) fathered by her captor.

A24 will release the film later this year.

Runners-up for the People’s Choice Award include Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight” and Pan Nalin’s “Angry Indian Goddesses.”

“Closet Monster” was named the best Canadian film, while “Sleeping Giant” won the award for the best Canadian first feature.

Jonas Cuaron‘s “Desierto” won the FIPRESCI critics’ prize for films in the Special Presentations section, while Marko Skop’s Slovakian film “Eva Nova” won the FIPRESCI prize in the Discovery program. Sian Sono’s “The Whispering Star” won the NETPAC award for Asian cinema.

Five TIFF audience winners have gone on to win the Oscar for Best Picture: “12 Years a Slave” in 2013, “The King’s Speech” in 2010, “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2008, “American Beauty” in 1999 and “Chariots of Fire” in 1981. Other recent TIFF winners include “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Precious,” “Eastern Promises,” the Lebanese movie “Where Do We Go Now?” and last year’s winner, “The Imitation Game.”

Every film screening publicly at the festival is eligible for the award, apart from short films and revivals in the TIFF Cinematheque section.

Audience members cast ballots for films by depositing their ticket stubs as they leave the theater, or by entering their ticket numbers online. The winners are not the films with the largest number of votes, but the ones that received the largest percentage of votes from the total audience that saw the movie.